It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t have a strong opinion about the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners joining the SEC in 2024.
Former Tennessee Volunteers legend Peyton Manning is one of them, and during an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Thursday, he shared his thoughts about his old conference adding two college football powers.
“I think it’s going to be awesome for the Southeastern Conference,” Manning said. “… I think there’s going to be some immediate rivalries created with Texas and Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee — it’s not going to take long to create these rivalries. Obviously (Texas) A&M-Texas, bringing that back is awesome. Bringing Texas-Arkansas back, I think that’s awesome. Both those teams are going to fit right into the conference and make an incredibly difficult conference even harder.”
To Manning’s point, the geography of the conference realignment alone should help create more compelling rivalries. Oklahoma has new potential regional grudge matches with Arkansas and Ole Miss, as does Texas with Texas A&M and LSU.
The move also creates more parity at the top of the conference. Alabama and Georgia have had a stranglehold on the SEC dating back to 2012, save for the 2013 Auburn and 2019 LSU teams. With Texas and Oklahoma now in the fold, the conference becomes more difficult to win.
